The Labour Party has claimed the number of people on medical cards has dropped by more than 2,000 since Ms Mary Harney became Minister for Health.
The Labour health spokeswoman, Ms Liz McManus, said this decline was happening despite the introduction of higher income thresholds for medical cards on January 1st and the Minister's stated promise to provide free medical care to 30,000 more people on low incomes.
Ms McManus said: "New figures we have obtained show that the number of persons with a medical card has continued to decline since the Tánaiste became Minister for Health.
She said: "This is part of an ongoing trend - since the last general election in 2002, the number of medical cards has fallen by 103,471.
She accused Ms Harney of failing to halt the removal of medical cards from people on low incomes.
Ms Harney, promised in the November Estimates to extend medical card eligibility to a further 30,000 people.
This announcement came as it emerged the number of low-income medical card holders had dropped by over 200,000 since the Government came to power in 1997.
Ms Harney pledged to hand out 200,000 new "doctor-only" cards to entitle recipients to free GP visits only.
The Department of Health says that eligibility fluctuates as people's circumstances change.